Hackensack Police Crackdown Sparks Backlash From Community And Press The Bergen Dispatch
By staff
Thursday, Aug 15, 2013
Recently the Bergen Record ran a story about a crackdown by Hackensack Police on the homeless. The article by Record staff writer Hannan Adely fell short of describing the many problems both the police and the homeless are facing in Hackensack but it started a conversation long overdue.
“We are not targeting the homeless” said Hackensack Police Director Michael Mordaga in response to Adely‘s article and another by the Hackensack Chronicle also owned by North Jersey Media. “Unfair and unjustified” is how Mordaga described the reports, “we have no reason to target the homeless”.
The “crackdown” described is a 2-month-old initiative to deal with what Hackensack officials call “quality-of-life crimes.”
Thom Ammirato, public relations consultant for the City of Hackensack described the crackdown on “quality-of-life crimes” as being modeled after Rudy Giuliani’s 1990’s zero tolerance quality of life campaign in New York City. Giuliani’s war on the squeegee guys, panhandlers and the homeless was aimed at reclaiming public space.
This initiative comes at a time when the city is investing in a major downtown rehabilitation. Newly appointed Mayor John Labrosse told the Bergen Dispatch "It's something we have to do." speaking of revitalizing the downtown area.
The Mayor was quick to criticize the Record for the stories, "The Record didn't run stories like this while they were trying to sell their property in Hackensack, they waited until that deal was done."
The Record’s former headquarters, a 19.7-acre property on River Street in Hackensack, is being sold to a developer who said he wants to build a high-end residential and retail community with more than 500 apartments and a hotel.
The Bergen Record moved from Hackensack to West Paterson in 2008 and the building on River Street has sat empty since. North Jersey Media who owns the Record recently signed a deal to lease 500 parking spaces at the River Street building site to the County of Bergen for $770,000 during the construction of the new court house.
Labrosse and the entire Citizens for Change slate won all five seats in the city council elections on May 14 campaigning on a plan for open government, community redevelopment and public safety.
The Best Western Caught in the middle of the “crackdown” is the Bergen County Housing, Health & Human Services Center, also known as the Bergen County homeless shelter. Located on South River Street adjacent to the Bergen County Jail the center has a 90-bed temporary shelter capacity, 62 of which are in bedrooms that accommodate from two to eight individuals, and 28 are dormitory style
The center receives referrals for temporary shelter from community agencies, religious institutions, and law enforcement agencies. Those referred to the center may have a history of substance abuse, physical and mental health problems, and unemployment, in addition to homelessness.
The facility is part of a public-private effort to combat homelessness and partners include Bergen County Department of Health Services, Care Plus NJ, Christ Church Community Development Corporation, Inter-religious Fellowship for the Homeless of Bergen County and North Jersey Friendship House. Bergen Community College provides educational services and Family Promise of Bergen County provides a walk-in dinner program 365 days a year.
The walk-in dinner program schedules a congregation or organization every day of the year to provide, prepare and serve dinner to approximately 150 people at the shelter. Although many of the guests have a place to live, their limited incomes don’t stretch to cover dinner every night. Some are “street people” who may decide after a few good meals in a friendly atmosphere to trust the “system” enough to look into additional services provided at the same location.
Kate Duggan, Executive Director of Family Promise of Bergen County told the Bergen Dispatch, “The causes of homelessness are varied and complex. Our goal should be to provide an environment where the homeless can access services that will help them find stable housing and get the additional assistance they need. “
The “shelter” is a modern, safe and clean facility that defies anyone’s expectations of what a homeless shelter would be. The quality of the facility is often the subject of ridicule being compared to a hotel or the “Best Western” as Hackensack Mayor John Labrosse called it.
The “Best Western” is a term used by many public officials and law enforcement to describe the shelter. Too often the impression left by officials is that the County facility is too good for the type of people it is intended to help.
“Dumping” The Homeless The “shelter” is a best effort by a community to deal with the problem of homelessness in Bergen County but its location does impose a burden on the City of Hackensack. Expected to serve the entire County the shelter attracts the homeless from seventy municipalities to one location.
Police Departments from across Bergen County bring homeless people to Hackensack and far too often leave them on the city streets to seek assistance at the shelter. Mayor John Labrosse was quick to point this out describing other towns as “dumping” the homeless on Hackensack’s doorstep.
The shelter, by design, is expected to receive “referrals” and individuals seeking services often are told there is two to three week wait.
A regular occurrence at the shelter is seeing people dropped off by municipal law enforcement on the street just outside the shelter. The shelter maintains public hours daily from 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 4 p.m. and people left at the shelter’s entrance in the middle of the night are told to leave the property, left to fend for themselves homeless in Hackensack for up to three weeks.
When municipal law enforcement takes the time to pull in to the shelter parking lot the person they are dropping off is received as a “referral” and in most cases off the street immediately.
When asked about the difference between “dumping” the homeless outside the shelter versus taking them inside, Chief Donald V. Keane, president of the Bergen County Police Chief’s Association told the Bergen Dispatch. “I cannot speak for the sixty plus agencies in Bergen County but as Chief of the Cliffside Park Police I was not aware of this.”
For the homeless seeking services the weeks that they need to spend on the streets of Hackensack hoping for a bed at the shelter can be a make or break situation. For Hackensack the increase in people on the street is an unnecessary and expensive burden that will not be solved by a crackdown.
Homelessness, even in a good economy, is a persistent problem that can be addressed and should always invoke the words there but for the grace of God go I.
For the system to best serve the municipalities as well as the homeless a person in need should be able to seek the assistance of the local Police who can, with a little effort, get them off the street and on to a path to additional assistance.
Chief Keane was eager to help, “we’re onboard, tell us what we can do better and we will” he said.
Jeanne Baratta, Chief of Staff for the County Executive, who oversees the shelter, was also not aware of the dumping. “This sounds like something we can fix with a fax” Baratta told the Bergen Dispatch.
A Perfect Storm The new administration in Hackensack is eager to live up to campaign promises but a rift between the City and County is apparent.
County Executive’s Chief of Staff, Jeanne Baratta, told the Bergen Dispatch that she has reached out to the new Mayor and Council with an invitation to visit the shelter. Thom Ammirato, the city’s public relations consultant, dismissed the idea telling the Bergen Dispatch the city is looking for a “more comprehensive solution” to what he described as the financial burdens put on Hackensack by the County.
Both Jeanne Baratta and Hackensack Police Director Michael Mordaga told the Bergen Dispatch that the police and shelter have always had a good relationship but both were quick to point out that recently this has changed.
If Hackensack officials are serious about continuing a Giuliani, New York City, quality of life campaign it will be done in an age of Twitter, YouTube and Real-Time News.
Giuliani’s campaign did target the homeless who were sleeping in the subway and on the streets by taking them in bus loads to shelters. Hackensack officials cannot expect to scare off the homeless and for Bergen County’s homeless there is no place else to go but Hackensack.
